


alive

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, BAMF Tony Stark, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reflection, Self-Reflection, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27132592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: tony makes it out alive.he makes it out of his childhood alive, and then what comes after alive, and then afganistan. he makes it out alive. it's a defining theme, your english teacher would say.
Relationships: Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, Happy Hogan & Tony Stark, Howard Stark & Maria Stark & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Everyone
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	alive

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic but I changed so much I thought it deserved a repost

Tony is eighteen years old, and he is brilliant, young, full of fire. Everyone who doesn't hate him wants to be him, some girl whispers in his ear, and he pretends he likes that philosophical shit and kisses her deeply. He knows what she's after, and it's not a stimulating conversation.

Everyone wants to be him, except him. With those parents, and the paparazzi that follows him, and all that money and responsibility, he'd be anyone else. If he could choose, he'd be Rhodey, because Rhodey's parents are already proud of him. He's already surpassed all his expectations.

Not Tony. No, not a Stark. He's practically a disappointment. He looks into his mother's dazed eyes, and knows it's true. Would it be different if he was better? He's just left MIT, and graduated summa cum laude with master degrees in engineering and physics, he’s made DUM-E and Jarv, and everyone's been telling him he's fantastic and capable and his parents really should be proud. He still can’t help thinking, _am I good enough?_

He graduated, and no one even slightly bothered to try and poach him. He belongs to Stark Industries, apparently. To his father. He wishes someone did try. He probably would have taken the job, too, just to piss off his father. Maybe that would be easier, not to be working under his father. He's pretty sure it would be, he could be sure but he's too tired to do the math. 

Obie tries to placate him, those nights when there’s nothing to go to, people have morning shifts and no money and so there are no parties, nothing to do. Those nights, he’s bruising and raw and thinks he’s going to vibrate to a frequency so high he'll explode, guts all over the walls. Those nights, when he’s angry, Obie places his big hands, with those palms like the width of tires or plates or the equator on the back of his neck, his hip, his shoulders, the small of his back, anywhere he can reach. It always makes him feel tiny, those hands. Small. He...He doesn't know if he likes it, but it doesn't matter if he likes it or not, does it?

But Obie isn’t there all the time. Sometimes he’s dealing with his father or the business or whatever, maybe his second wife. So he sits alone in his big house in Manhattan, the surround sound he installed specially vibrating him to early hearing loss, but he’ll deal with that later. He sits on the bed, jeans and shoes on, on top of the covers, spine melting with the bass and solidifying like wax with the next verse. He can't move. He doesn't want to move, and all he wants is the next song to fill the silence.

Next thing he knows it's three am and the police are at the door asking him to turn it down. 

It’s cold outside, the air hitting his face shocks him a little. "Yes, sir," he rasps, and goes to close the door, but the young officer with the uniform that doesn't quite fit him yet stops him. 

“Are you alright, sir?”

Tony smiles wanly. “What is this, a wellness check?”

The young officer shakes his head, the older one looks bored. “No, sir, just asking.”

Tony smiles tightly, "JARVIS, turn it down," he instructs without looking away.

"Yes, sir,” JARVIS answers. The officer’s eyes widen, both of them.

"What is that?” the young one asks. He’s got a name on his uniform. Officer Lee. 

Tony humours him. "AI. Artificial Intelligence. Computer with a brain. Future of the world, just no one knows it yet." Lee’s mouth opens and closes. "You asked if I was alright?" Tony laughs. "I’m gonna revolutise everything, and even my fucking father doesn’t realise it.” He’s a little spiteful, sure, and more than a bit angry, but it’s true, and he deserves to be a bit spiteful and angry sometimes. He’s tired, suddenly, and relises it’s been thirty hours since he slept, "See you, officer,” he says, and tries to close the door again.

"Uh, about th — what’dya call it, AI?” Lee asks, and Tony hums yes in response. "It just...seems pretty dangerous. A computer with a brain? that's movie stuff, y'know, robocop."

Tony smiles, and he actually means it, "noted.”

He turns around, shuts the door, and looks at his grand fucking empty house he hates.

— 

The party doesn't make him feel small, it makes him feel unimportant; just another faceless youth living paycheck to paycheck, only alive on the weekends. He likes the beat drops, the drinks, the people. The girls, mostly. Mostly. All he wants is to be unimportant, just somebody else. Then the pictures come out the next day of his drinking, and dancing, and laughing, smeared in glitter and tequila and actually some sort of happy, for once, he doesn't regret anything, not even when his publicist rings a moment later. 

So he does that, most nights Thursday to Sunday, and then he listens to music, and then Rhodey comes home from wherever they’ve stationed him this time. So then he spends his evenings on the couch, fingers greasy with butter, shovelling popcorn into their mouths and laughing over cheesy movies. He’d be wearing a hoodie, one of Rhodey's, and since it’s too big for him, flops over his hands. He doesn't wear it out, no, it's too...vulnerable for that. He only wears suits and $300 grey t-shirts outside, sometimes nudity. depends on the occasion.

His parents die Christmas ‘91. He goes to the funeral even though he doesn't want to. He upheaves everything in his stomach a half-hour before the event, but not because he’s sad. He’s not sad. He didn’t know his parents, really. His mother didn’t know who she was half the time, after chasing her pills with a margarita salty rim and all. He wipes his mouth and adjusts his tux and takes a few breath mints, crushes them under his molars. He’s not ready, but he’s going. He steps out of the bathroom and Rhodey’s gone downstairs, so it’s just Obie waiting for him, sitting on the couch patiently. He smiles wide and places one of those big hands on his neck till the ride over, and Tony's stomach turns again. 

It’s not better once they get there. What's meant to be a funeral is a gaudy, terrible press parade. There’s paparazzi at every turn, people he’s not sure either of his parents knew, and his parent’s open caskets are possibly the most traumatizing thing he’s ever seen.

His father’s face is still lined, but he’s got half a litre of botox in to stop him looking gaunt and old like he did before death; it’s been good to him, Tony thinks, as he pretends to look sad. To look like the grieving son, as if he actually cares, when really all he can think about is this new Arc reactor idea he’s been toying with.

His mother, well she’s about three shades lighter than she was in real life and her old worn rosary with the wooden beads is missing from her hands. It’s funny, because she was about as white as Howard was. Right, he forgot. Only white people can go to heaven. 

“Bye, Mama,” he whispers to her, and thinks she should be clutching her pills or something. He knows she prayed to those more than any god.

He leans back up and turns into the blinding light of paparazzi flashes. He's glad for the sunglasses. 

—

He grows up a little, or that's what they say, stops the parties, spends all his time that he’s not in his workshop at press events; gala’s, benefits, balls, whatever his PR agent says he should go to. _Clean up your image,_ she says, _fine, alright,_ he says back, for the first time. He doesn't mind, the parties were getting boring anyway, everyone was too young and too passionate and too idealistic and that was alright when he was 18 and the same, but now he’s 22 but feels much older. He's getting old. His back hurts like all the time. 

The public hates him and loves him with both hands, it’s given and taken equally. He's the monster, he's the philanthropist. He's the evil villain capitalising on the world, and he's an innovator. Maybe he is evil, maybe he's not. Maybe he's both. Either way, it doesn't matter. He’s just making money.

One hand, he is the biggest weapons manufacturer in the world, the benefits of war, of death. One the other, he’s charming, funny, he makes jokes with interviewers, he can make anyone feel part of his world, full of fast cars and expensive liquor, even when they're not and never will be, because that world is something you don’t achieve, it’s something you’re born into.

He gets older and meets Pepper and it kind of looks okay again, like when he was a kid, like he’s got a chance at something. He doesn't listen to music like he used to anymore, until he has a long day and someone brings up his youth against him, like it was so terrible. He doesn't care, but it reminds him of long nights gone in a flash through the music, and maybe that’s what he needs. So, he does, and the music replaces his blood and the beast of his heart, and even the brain in his head. 

"Tony?" someone half-shouts. He opens an eye, it’s Pepper by the doorway, holding her ears.

"JARV,'' Tony says, and the music cuts out.

She blinks at him, surprised, somehow. "Oh, thanks."

“I can be nice sometimes,” He smiles a little, then defaults back to his bored bitch face. "You need something, Pepper? A signature?"

She shakes her head and says, hesitantly, "No, no. I don't need anything. There was just a noise complaint."

Tony smiles at the ceiling. "Haven't got one of those in a while. What was the name?"

She looks confused. "The name?"

"Yeah, the name. The police officer." He remembers it, after all those years, every Wednesday night it seemed, he’d knock on the door, and he'd ask about Jarvis, and Tony would answer. Sometimes Jarvis would. It’s been a long time now, 10 years, but he hopes. 

She blows air through her lips. "Oh, I don't know."

He tuts, staring at the ceiling. "C'mon. Was it Lee? Officer Lee?"

"Uh, yes, maybe."

"White, heavy New Yorker accent, dark hair, brown eyes. He’s got a scar on his lip."

“Yes,” she decides, “yes, that was him.”

Tony laughs on the bed. "oh, fantastic. An old buddy of mine. Used to come over all the time.”

Pepper looks at him and she's concerned, but she's always a little concerned.

— 

Then, he's making jokes with a kid — oh god _the kid_ . He just wanted a picture — one second, and dying the next, or it seems like it. He spills his drink, ans there’s noise and sound, and he’s getting out of the car even though he was told to stay. He’ll die if he leaves and if he stays, so it doesn’t matter anymore. He screams for Rhodey, but his truck’s on fire. _Oh, fuck, Rhodey. No no no no no —_ the phone. He’s gotta get help. He’s running, hiding, pulling the phone out of his pocket. He’s barley unlocked it, then he’s on his back, there’s blood in his mouth, his vest has failed, he knows it has becaus there’s — oh, fuck, something’s in his chest. 

—

He wakes up, and suddenly Obie’s hands on him seem like the best thing in the world compared to everything else. Rather than Yinsen's in his chest cavity. 

Yinsen is the first person since his mother and Jarvis that he doesn't bother pretending around. He's not Tony Stark, flamboyant, crazy, eccentric, crude billionaire. He's Tony stark, prisoner. He's nothing. He’s just him, and without all that fair is pretty boring.

Yinsen tells him about his family but Tony doesn't tell him about Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, the bots, or JARVIS and Jarvis. He wants to, and he nearly does — the words climb up his throat and wait next to his teeth, but he can’t spit them out. He can’t. He says it, and it’s real, it’s not just subtext, and he can barely deal with subtext. If he cares, it’s harder.

He knows what Yinsen thinks of him. He's the living embodiment of capitalism and modern-age America and everything wrong in the world, and he is. He is. He's not anything more, and it’s been years since he has been. When he was a kid, there was a chance there. Promise. He could've been someone so different if given that chance. He wasn't. Maybe he just didn’t take it. Maybe if he'd been poached, he tells himself, but it's just an excuse. 

He wakes up early one morning. Maybe in the morning. He doesn't have any sense of time anymore. 

No one's asking anything of him yet, and Yinsen is still asleep so he puts a hand over his chest and just _wishes._ Wishes that he’s not this fucked up next go around, if reincarnation turns out to be a thing. 

He wishes that he’d said something to Yinsen, about family, because maybe then he could escape, if he escapes, and he’s dead, and he could tell them. 

_Your friend Tony, he cared about you. He loved you. All he wanted to do was escape for you._ Rhodey would hide his tears in his lash line and hug Yinsen like he's Tony, and Pepper would start to cry but try to hold it back, and Happy would be stoic and silent and then when he’s alone, he’d break down. That's how it would happen, Tony knows. But it won’t happen, and not because he won’t escape, and not because he won’t die, those are very real possibilities, but because he didn’t tell Yinsen how he feels about them. 

Instead they’ll get the news, wherever they are, that the search is stopping and Tony Stark is presumed dead. 

JARVIS would have to tell the bots, and that would hurt them and hurt him. Pepper would swallow it, she can always get a new job, and she will, but she’d go home that night and kick off her shoes in her flat, the one JARVIS monitors for her, not that she knows, and pour a glass of wine without drinking it and then she’d cry, and tears-dripping cry, not dainty, not sweet, it’d be a chest-hurting cry. Happy… he doesn't know. Maybe he’d hear it on the radio while driving, and he’d pull off the road and recline his seat down and just sit there for a while. Rhodey — the slightest, smallest, microscopic chance he’s alive? Rhodey would fight, he’d crawl his way into every board room and email every inbox he can and try to get them to keep looking, but he wouldn't succeed. He’d try, but he wouldn't. If he’s even alive. If he didn't burn in that fire, Tony realises. Is Rhodey dead? 

But then they would all get better. I would hurt, but they would.

Pepper can get a new job easily, and even better one without a dead, demanding boss and crazy hours, and Rhodey's got a career in the military with or without him. Happy can keep driving for what's left of SI until it all crumbles, and then he can jump ship and start working for Hammer Industries, or something. JARVIS… maybe JARVIS can just go on vacation, arrange for the bots to go to another lab where they’ll treat them good and then go dormant until he wants to wake up again, or maybe he can work for Fury or something. Just so his boy is doing something, because JARVIS’s worst hell is aimlessness. He was created for purpose, he can’t lay idle. 

There’s a groan from Yinsen’s cot, and Tony looks over, even through the stabbing in his chest. He’s waking up. 

— 

Yinsen dies and the analytical part of Tony — the part that doesn't care past the statistics and financial gain supposes it’s a good thing. He can't talk anymore, spill any secrets of what he saw or heard in that cave. 

Tony wonders how he got here, as he’s staggering through the desert, one step at a time, panting, burning, oases flickering in front of him every time he looks to the corner of his eyes. He knows it’s not real. He knows it’s not real, but he can’t convince himself of it. His mother reaches for him. it's not real. She blows away with the next breeze like the sand. 

The kid, the soldier, he's standing here, guts dripping out between his fingers as he clutches his middle, mouth open in pain. Tony nearly cries out in horror, because it's so real, and the kids looking at him, but then he blinks and it’s Yinsen instead, standing there, smiling a little, blood on his mouth. 

He keeps walking, but it's more autopilot than anything else. Yinsen says something, but Tony doesn't hear it — why doesn't he hear it? It’s too loud. It’s mechanical, engines moving, pistons, gears, and Tony thinks it's another illusion Then two giant black military helicopters rise above the dunes behind him like fat, buzzing flies and he thinks about mirages, and then he feels the sand sting his eyes, and he knows. He cries out, and laughs and waves his hands above his head. He collapses, he knows. His knees give out, and his hands are lifting above his head in victory, and he’s peace-signing like one of those hippies his dad always talked about but oh — fuck, _they found him._

He gets back, and that's just as quick of a whirlwind, the helicopter ride, Rhodey's grin and the medic onboard trying to poke him with things he insists not to be touched with. They can't know about his chest. They can’t know because Tony's been thinking a lot, and he hasn't quite sorted it all out yet, but he knows he doesn't want to give the military this. He doesn't wanna give anybody this, because he’s done. The medic gets angry, and Tony just leans forward, ice in his eyes. He did not survive three months of hell to be bullied.

“Honey pie, this is no worse than a week-long bender. Give me some water and let me be, or I will withdraw every little bit of funding I’ve ever put into emergency services and get you fired, purely because I want to.”

The medic gives him water and tells him to drink slowly, and Tony grins in victory. Rhodey sighs next to him, but Tony doesn't mind as he twists the cap off with his shaking hands and drinks his first sip of clean water in what seems like so long. He kind of wants to cry, is that weird? It just tastes so good. 

They land, and Pepper’s there, trying not to cry, her eyes are all red so she has anyway, like he said she would be. They banter through it all, and Tony’s never been one for love, really, but this...this feels like a maybe. A could be. 

Then they're fighting in the car again, it's all back to normal, Tony's ordering press conference and Pepper's insisting on the hospital and Tony's overruling her valid suggestion that's for his own good to do some other stupid shit. A detour to McDonalds that makes Happy laugh in the front seat about, and that first bite of American cheese and what should technically be meat but he’s not sure, with the pickles and the ketchup — fuck, heart disease is worth it. Well, maybe that’s not the worst thing to worry about.

After that, there's the press conference, which...he doesn't have to explain that, does he? Christ, they're going to fucking kill him, all of them, Obie, the shareholders, the stockholders, Pepper, his father's ghost. He doesn’t care. He doesn't. 

After that, he's _home_ , finally. And it is home, it's not the big house in Manhattan. He built this, he designed it, every inch of it. This is his. 

He walks through his house, his big house, his beautiful house. JARVIS is still talking to him, but he stopped listening a while ago. He ends up in his bedroom, untouched for three months. It’s a bit dusty, all of the house is, and the only addition to how he left it is the bed being made and a few papers he probably meant to sign on the bedside table; left there by Pepper, before everything went to shit. Before she knew. He walks over, leaves through the. It's nothing really. Just boring business bullshit. 

“Jarv,” Tony says softly, interrupting him. 

“Yes, sir?”

“Open the blinds.”

The mechanic blinds glide open slowly, and Tony's confronted with the view. California coast, blue water that goes out forever. He remembers why he chose this place. He used to go swimming somewhere nearish here, as a kid. Jarvis — the first Jarvis — took him a few times. They got ice cream and burgers on the way back. It was nice. Truly nice.

He sinks to his knees in front of the bed, of his horrifically high thread count sheets, of the papers that are three months old and a made bed that should still have Christine Everhart's underwear in it. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know what to do now — well, he does, but he doesn’t know _how_ and _when_ and honestly he just wants someone to hold him and tell him what to do and that it’ll all be alright, but no one’s there to do that.

He’s got lots of messages. He’s probably got so many. Oh, god, he’s gonna have to conference with Tokyo tomorrow, no doubt. The Japanese department is so needy.

When did life turn into this? Messages and papers on the bed and no one that actually cares about him. He's made it that way, pushed everyone away that ever had a chance to get close to him. He liked it like that. Not so much now. 

He sobs, suddenly, it tears through his throat like tissue paper. He bends, braces his arms on the bed and sobs and _sobs_ . His position is odd, like he’s praying, but he doesn't think he's ever truly prayed, only sent up quick texts like _fuck, don't let Obie catch me in this skirt it's just a dare_ and _Oh dear god, please don't ring my parents_ and _oh, christ, was that laced? No no no please no. This trip has gone on long enough_. His chest hurts but his chest always hurts. Just a side effect of having a hole dug in it. 

“Are you okay, sir?” Jarvis asks quietly, nervously. 

“Jarv...I did something while I was away. I used to tell people you were gonna change the world, but I think this will.”

“Is this related to the metal, specifically palladium, and electromagnetics embedded in your sternum?”

Tony laughs, or tries too, because it dies in his chest, with the stabbing pain. He wheezes for breath, but when he recovers, just says, “can’t get nothing past you.”

“No, sir,” Jarvis agrees succinctly.


End file.
